For a long time, I felt like if I was really going to do the music thing, I would have to do it
right now, while I'm still young. But I've been realizing that maybe being young isn't really so all-important to what I want to eventually accomplish as a musician, and that it can wait for
a while. Like four to eight years, maybe.

Not really. Even though I'm a C.S. guy, I'm actually employed through the physics department (incidentally, I got my C.S. degrees at UIUC before moving here in 2000), and I really know very little about the C.S. department here. Any particular questions, though? (I'm also notoriously bad at answering open-ended or general questions, courtesy of my AS.)

Nah, that's okay. I'm curious about the Meaning and Computation Lab because it looks like the research they're doing encompasses several things I'm interested in (proof theory and semantics; UI design; ethical issues), but I don't have any specific questions yet.